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“My F1 career is going to be ruined,” I sobbed, my voice cracking with every word.
“No, it won’t, Cara. I’m here for as long as you want to keep doing this. I promise you that. Whatever is going to be said about us, we can fight, prove them wrong.”
“Even if we break up at the end of the season, everyone is going to accuse us of this being a PR stunt! I can’t force you to date me forever.” I continued to cry into Luca as he kept rubbing my back, trying to soothe my tears.
“Georgia Dubois, I promise you, I don’t care how long this takes - I’ll make sure everyone sees justhow much I love you.”
ChapterTwenty
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT
Georgia
The flight back home was miserable. As soon as the call with Lizzie ended, Luca and I both moved our flights up. We had been instructed to head to our factories on Tuesday for a debrief on the situation; an early morning call with the crisis team that had been scheduled. Isabelle spoke to me a bit Monday afternoon, assuring me that her friend in London was the best at what she did. As of right now, the only people who knew about the hiring of the crisis firm were a select handful of people with direct knowledge of Luca and I’s relationship.
That Monday morning, I cried into Luca's chest, lamenting about how my career was over. It wasn’t until later in the day, as I sat on my plane to Monaco, that I realized what he had said.
‘Georgia Dubois, I promise you, I don’t care how long this takes - I’ll make sure everyone sees just how much I love you.’
How much I love you.
Those words echoed in my brain over and over again. Luca had obviously meant that he was going to show the world that our relationship was genuine, that we were in love, even if we knew it was all pretend.
Right?
I knew that had to be the case, but still, his choice of words had me at a loss. What if he did mean them as something more? Why did Iwanthim to mean them as something more? Why did I want Luca “Playboy” Rossi, a man I despised mere months ago, to be something more? That question had been circling around my head all day, and I knew the answer.
BecauseIwas falling in love withhim.
For now, I had to push that thought down because if we didn’t clear this up, it didn’t matter how I felt about Luca. I’d lose him forever and possibly my F1 seat when all of the sponsors pulled out.
Lily and I were already planning to be at the factory on Tuesday. We had three more races before summer break, and the team had upgrades they wanted to get tested before we went into the break. I knew my first meeting of the morning was going to be about the situation and how it was unfolding.
As promised, the Daily Report released the article that Monday afternoon. Lizzie had instructed neither of us to read it, which I had listened to, although not because she had instructed me to do so, because I was too terrified that if I read it, then this nightmare would actually be real. In my mind, there was still a silent hope that if I didn’t read it, the words would never enter the world – never haunt my dreams.
As I sat down in the conference room with my cup of black coffee, I knew that wasn’t the case. Elizabeth, the crisis manager, was already in the conference room chatting with Isabelle and Lizzie, who had arrived at the factory much earlier in the morning. I could see Lizzie furiously taking notes as Elizabeth spoke to the two of them. As I entered the room, the three of them stopped their private conversation, waving for me to come in.
“Ahh, Georgia, good morning. This is Elizabeth. She’s been retained to help us.” Elizabeth shook my hand as Isabelle introduced us. I just nodded and sat down, taking a look at my phone. I had a text from Luca.
Luca: Good morning – how are you this morning?
Georgia: Well, I woke up still a Silverstone winner, so… I guess it’s not all doom and gloom.
Luca: That’s my girl.
I smiled at his texts and set my phone down as Luca, Francesco, and Matteo’s faces appeared on the conference room screen. Lily entered the conference room a moment later, apologizing for being late.
“Thank you for joining us. I know you are preparing for Austria’s Grand Prix this weekend, so I will keep this concise and to the point. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to find the Daily Report source. Our private investigator has identified it as the Silverstone event bartender. Apparently, there was a conversation he overheard at the Silverstone Sunday driver’s dinner. Seems as though Georgia’s ex-fiance has a loud mouth, and he spent a good amount of time chatting to the barman, who thought it was a good idea to pass this information along to the Daily Report.”
As Elizabeth announced this to the room, my body froze. Anthony was too smart to go to the Daily Report himself – the gossipy newspaper would likely just write him off as a lover scorned, but having a bartender chat about whathehad heard? Now, that was right up Anthony’s sleeve.
“Absolute wanker,” Lily blurted out, causing everyone to look over at her. Lily’s eyes went wide as she noticed that everyone was staring at her, clearly not expecting her outburst to be quite so loud.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Lizzie chuckled.
“Right, well, to cut to the chase, there is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that without prompting, several drivers have come to Georgia and Luca's defense on social media. Edward even gave them a shout-out yesterday during his podcast.”
I looked up at the screen as Elizabeth circled through various social media posts from the other drivers, all standing up for me and Luca. My heart warmed as I went through them on the screen. Several of the other drivers, such as Oliver, Edward, and Éliott, had reached out to me, asking if I was okay, but none of them had told me about their posts. I had made it clear to Lizzie that I wouldn’t ask them to post on my behalf, but I was so incredibly touched that they had done it on their own.
